


My Prague

by lionessvalenti



Category: White Collar
Genre: Backstory, F/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-04
Updated: 2014-01-04
Packaged: 2018-01-07 10:04:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1118589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionessvalenti/pseuds/lionessvalenti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sara takes care of Neal while he's sick. He wants to hear stories from her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Prague

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sahiya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/gifts).



Sara pressed her hand against Neal's forehead. He was still warm, but not as warm as he had been earlier.

She'd never seen Neal sick before. When she had arrived a few hours earlier with ginger ale, matzo ball soup, and NyQuil, she'd been shocked. He had to have known how bad he looked and he'd called her anyway. She should have been surprised, but really, she had just been touched. It was a weird feeling.

Neal stirred under her touch and his eyes opened. "You're still here," he mumbled.

"Yeah," she replied with a smile. "I've been drinking all your wine and reading your books. It's probably a lot like having Mozzie over."

"You're nicer to look at," Neal said. He took her hand in his and it felt warm to her. "Tell me a story."

"A story?" Sara repeated with a hint of a laugh. "What? Like _Goldilocks and the Three Bears_?"

Neal smiled, his eyelids lowering. "Tell me a story about you. Your life. It's always about me."

"Okay," she said slowly. She traced over the bones in his hand with her finger. "I could tell you about when I studied abroad in Prague, but I'm sure you've already been there."

"I have, but tell me about your Prague."

Sara hummed a laugh. "My Prague... well, I liked this little café, it was tucked back into this alley and I have no idea how I even found it. No one spoke English, but I remember it being really warm and it smelled like bread. That smell of baking bread always makes me think of Prague. And they had this weird coffee. It wasn't bad, it was just weird and I drank it every day. I never got used to how weird it was."

She thought Neal was asleep, but after a few moments he asked, "Do you ever want to go back?"

"I did once, for a job a couple years ago. I was only there for thirteen hours, but I went back to the café and the coffee was still really weird."

He laughed and it turned into coughing. He turned his head and coughed into the arm of his pajamas. He flopped onto his back and looked up at her. "Maybe someday we can go together."

"That'd be nice," Sara replied. "Once you recover from the plague and you're no longer on a two mile tether."

"Actually, it's a lot more than two miles when you consider the radius and that's two miles in every direction, so--"

"Don't math at me," Sara said, wagging a finger in his face. "You shouldn't do math when you're sick. It's a rule. I was sick a lot when I was a kid and I never did my math homework until I was better."

"You were sick a lot?"

"Mmhmm." She hesitated. She hadn't talked about this in a long time. There hadn't been anyone to talk to about it. "It wasn't like I had something chronic, I just caught every little bug that went around. I was even tinier back then, if you can believe that, and my body couldn't handle it. Emily used to come in after school and she'd put on little shows for me. She'd sing along with cassettes or do a dance routine. It always made me laugh."

Neal rested his hand on her leg. "Sorry. I didn't mean to--"

Sara shook her head. "No, no, it's fine. The smell of the vapor rub, that did it for me, I was already thinking about it." She touched his hand and smiled. "It took me right back there."

"This is your Prague too, huh?"

"I guess so. You go back to sleep, okay? And no math."

"No math," Neal echoed, and he sounded half asleep already.

She leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. "I'll be here when you wake up," she whispered, and then went to pour herself another glass of wine.


End file.
